THE OFFICIAL GUIDE TO KNOWING WHEN MUSIC IS 'GOOD'.

Music is bad when :
A) It is not famous.
All good music is famous, but even famous music is not good if :
1) You have not yet found out that it is indeed famous.
Although all famous (and therefore good) music was at one time not famous,
all music that is not yet famous is bad because :
A) No one will like you if you like such music.
B) No one will remember or care that you liked the
product before it became well-known.
2) It was produced by someone who has made famous music
only once before, i.e., a loathsome 'one hit wonder'.
3) It is famous but it serves no purpose for you to announce that you like it.


Music is good when :
A) It is famous. (with the above mentioned caveats)
As the caveats above clearly state, it is an error in judgment to consider
any other factors in your assessment of musical viability. However, as a guide
to those with special circumstances, several inadvisable options for good music
are listed below only to show them as the best of the faulty reasons why a given
music product might be considered good, in an attempt to minimize the damage done
to those individuals who, for whatever reason, must ignore the facts.

B) It is liked by an individual with whom you are enamored.

C) If, by liking it, you can 'be somebody', but :
You are delusional if you erroneously announce that you like any non-famous
music in an attempt to 'be somebody', or to enhance any feelings of
individualism-through-unique-preference, or to impress others
through any intrinsically pretentious exhibition of supposed
artistic knowledge or extraordinarily up-to-date fashion awareness.
Although in some circles, both of the
elitist, art-ratbag variety and in ignorant, educationally-challenged,
teenage purulent factions, this will actually have a momentary socially-positive effect,
the cumulative return on this modality of behavior will be negative.

D) It is part of a multi-media presentation such as a movie
or a television program. The value-added relevance of this music
in particular depends very heavily on psychological associations and
contrasts, such as familiarity / strangeness and past usage of thematic
material reflected against the content of the immediate presentation,
which, by its visual nature, is far more powerful than sound.
The individuals who do this are recklessly toying around at the very fringes
of sanity in a stunningly vain belief that their experience is at all
pertinent to the experiences of masses of humanity in a global marketplace.
In addition, film music, although it has over the decades evolved
into an acceptable formula method of incidental auditory accompaniment, is
a very distant second to all other parts of the product in value. It lacks even the
souvenir value of props and other motion picture memorabilia because
it has no physical form, and should be discarded after use in the same
way that the artificial cardboard walls of the movie set are disposed of.
Without the visual part of the film, its music is almost always irrelevant
and worthless as a viable stand-alone product. Again, only if it becomes
famous does it become good music.

E) Its usage enhances your customer's shopping experience and will potentially
be a revenue-positive tool in your marketing arsenal.


Additional concerns :
Although most famous music will very soon become passe',
and even though the stigma of being associated with obsolescence
or un-stylish products or services is a detriment to be considered
as a factor in the judgment of any responsible individual, music is
a consumable product, and you are a consumer. The burden of recovery
from the onus of association with it is outweighed by the potential payoffs
of the utilization of the currently-famous product in social endeavors.

This can be exemplified in the examination of the cost/benefit ratio of
any involvement at all in music acquisition and usage.
Fundamentally, expenditures for music acquisition must be considered to be
of a maintenance and transitory nature, as must be expenditures
for fashion, food, cigarettes and waste disposal products.

Addendum 2005 :
All of these expediture concerns have become obsolete as of the late 1990's.
The acquisition of music is now universally accomplished without cost
through the exploitation of peer to peer computer networks, and a new paradigm
has been established in which any purchase of music product is stupid.
Music is now "good" (momentarily) when it is famous to micro-targeted consumers
or acquiatances and when it can be used as a tool in the manipulation of behavior or purchasing activity.
Otherwise it is absolutely useless and pathetic trash, and those who produce it are hurtling
directly into the abyss and to an inevitable collision with oblivion, madness and eternal sorrow.